Vtex compile parameters

Vtex can accept a list of additional compile parameters during its execution. These parameters are optional, but sometimes necessary to get a good result.

The list is written in the form of a simple text (.txt) document with the same name as the targa (.tga) image to compile, and it should be put in the same folder as it, namely in the SteamApps/common/gamefolder/materialsrc/ folder, where gamefolder is the game folder of the current game (cstrike/dod/hl2/hl2mp).

Example usage from one of the files for the console background:

nonice 1
nolod 1
nomip 1

Parameters

allmips

Force texture to use all mipmaps (No minimum mipmap).

alphatest_hifreq_threshhold

alphatest_threshhold

alphatest

To do: What do these do?

alphatodistance

Creates alpha-to-distance textures.

anisotropic

Force at least Anisotropic filtering on the compiled texture.

bumpscale

Sets texture's bumpscale value, which controls normal map intensity.

clamps

clampt

clampu

Do not allow the texture to wrap in the S, T, or U coordinate space, respectively. This is most often used for sprites that are not tiled.

Tip:When a texel is requested that is outside of the texture, one of two techniques is used: Clamping limits the texel to the texture size, moving it to the nearest if it is more than the texture size. Wrapping makes the texel move back into the texture by increments (each to size of the texture). Wrapping causes a texture to be repeated; clamping causes it to be in one spot only.

For normal maps. Used to prevent compression artifacts caused by DXTn compression which distort the smooth gradients on most normal maps. Leaves texture uncompressed and sets Trilinear flag to force Trilinear filtering. Furthermore, all normals will be kept normalized during mipmap generation.

Note:Automatically applies when the texture name ends with _normal

normalalphatodudvluminance

Use alpha channel as luminance when converting from normal maps to Du/Dv maps

Note:Automatically applies when the texture name ends with _height-ssbump

startframe (integer)

endframe (integer)

Used for animated textures. Textures must be named as texture000, texture001, texture002, etc. The startframe defines the beginning frame and the endframe defines the ending frame. Up to 1,000 frames are allowed.

stripalphachannel

Used to tell Vtex to ignore the source texture's alpha channel.

stripcolorchannel

Used to create a texture with no color data.

trilinear

Force at least Trilinear filtering on the compiled texture.

volumetexture

Creates a volumetric texture.

using .psd 'file info' parameters

Textures compiled from .psd files can have command line parameters saved into the .psd directly. To do this, use the 'File Info' menu in Photoshop and add your Vtex commands into the "description" text field. These parameters will get evaluated by Vtex when the .psd file is compiled.